Ingle Farm Football Club’s three senior teams withdraw from competition this weekend amid COVID-19 scare
An Adelaide Footy League club has decided not to take the field this weekend amid links to the COVID-19 case which closed two Adelaide schools.
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A northern suburbs amateur football club has withdrawn its three senior teams from this weekend’s matches amid fears of a connection to one of SA’s COVID-19 clusters.
Ingle Farm senior president Mark Smart said a spectator, who attended Roma Mitchell Secondary College, was among the crowd during the Bulldogs’ C grade game last Saturday.
On Sunday, it was revealed a woman in her 20s – a known contact of an existing patient in SA – attended Roma Mitchell while infectious with coronavirus.
Ingle Farm fields teams in the Adelaide Footy League’s division six, division six reserves and C6 competitions.
Smart said his brother, Scott Smart, and 13-year-old niece watched him play in the C grade game against Golden Grove at Rowe Park on Saturday.
The Bulldogs president, who also has a nine-month old daughter, did not know anyone who had tested positive to COVID-19 but said he did not want to take any chances or have his club potentially spread the deadly virus.
The club also has been told by the Adelaide Footy League that its women’s team would not be allowed to play this weekend because of COVID concerns and would forfeit its game against Flinders University.
“My brother’s daughter is part of that school and they all came out to senior football on Saturday and hung around me,” Smart said.
“We just want to make sure we are not going to be the one’s who spread it (coronavirus) through the amateur league.
“My brother has been in contact with the principal there for further information as to where this person was and the potential risk.
“We believe the (infectious) student was there on the Tuesday and the school didn’t notify everyone until the weekend so there’s a reasonable gap in which anything could’ve happened.
“We just felt we would do this as a precaution and the last thing I need is to be tied to the spread of COVID and I’m not going to put my team up for that.”
Smart said there was no known connection to the cluster with any of the club’s junior teams, which will still play matches this weekend.
He hoped the senior sides could start training again next week and continue the season.
“The way this disease spreads, there’s just too much close contact,” Smart said.
“If anything was to happen we will find out within the next week so there’s no point sending this virus further if we have the ability to stop it.
“If there’s no cases reported next week, then I can’t see why we wouldn’t return to normal duties.
“But in the short to medium term it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Adelaide Footy League chief executive John Kernahan said Ingle Farm’s decision should be “respected if not applauded”.
Kernahan said the league also decided to award the match points to Ingle Farm’s opponent, Elizabeth, this weekend.
Ingle Farm sits ninth on the division six ladder, eighth in the sixth tier reserves and seventh in C6 competition.